


The Shallows

by CozyCryptidCorner



Category: Original Work, exophilia - Fandom
Genre: Exophilia, Gen, Human/Monster Romance, Selkie - Freeform, Selkie/Reader - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 01:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17416385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CozyCryptidCorner/pseuds/CozyCryptidCorner
Summary: You know what you saw, just before drowning in the shallows of the sea. A boy that was once a seal dragged you from the frigid waters and onto land, where your family found you shivering, babbling of magic.Maybe you are crazy, you muse, standing in the exact spot where it happened. All in your head. A hallucination from a near-death experience.





	The Shallows

You don’t remember what the fight with your parents was about, but you do remember being so livid that tears had begun to burn your cheeks even before you made it out the door. You heard them calling for you, their cries unmotivated, confident that you would return soon enough with your head hung and your arguments gone. But you would show  _them,_  wouldn’t you? Defiance made you foolish, bitterness made you rebellious, and so you began marching down from the blindingly green forest, towards the sound of waves.

 

The nearly black sand was pleasantly warm from the summer sun, your bare feet glad to finally be on soft terrain. Even though you barely managed to hold yourself together, the moment your toes touched the frigid waves of the beach, your careful facade shattered like a porcelain doll against cement. You sobbed, falling to your knees, the water rushing against and around your legs as the high tide began to drown the coast. Tears fell into the ocean,  _drip, drip, dripping_  off your chin and returning to the earth. You screamed. You cried. You hated your parents wished you were never born.

 

A dark shape bobbed towards you in the water, only a bit smaller than you in size, quickly making its way through the shallows. You didn’t think it was large enough to be a shark, though the silly childhood fear of being eaten by one crossed your mind. Arms and legs too numb to move, you merely watched it approach, kneeling in the water that lapped just above your waist. It wasn’t until the creature was an arm’s reach away that you could finally see what it was. A seal, its light brown body speckled with black spots, eyes dark and almost scarily intelligent. It poked its head out of the water and brayed at you, almost indignantly.

 

Like a dog getting acquainted with a new person, the seal stuck its head forward and sniffed you, whiskers poking and tickling your neck and chin. Feeling no threat, you burst into wild giggles, teeth chattering uncontrollably through your laughter. With blue tinged fingertips, you patted the head of the seal, your hand shaking like a lone leaf in a hurricane. Your new friend honked, poking its snout into your stomach, almost shoving you backward with the amount of force used.

 

“H-he-ey,” you shivered, shaking so badly you may tip over if the seal tried doing that again.

 

“Blegh,” your new friend said.

 

“Cutie,” you giggled again, your vision turning spotty.

 

None of the WebMD websites list hallucinations as a side effect of hypothermia, though, one of your friends who is going through med school said that under high-stress situations sometimes the body does whatever it must to survive. A psychologist simply suggested that your child’s mind twisted the events into something like a fairytale. Though, if your child’s mind tried making a fairytale out of your near-death experience, it certainly could have chosen something less… absurd.

 

The belly of the seal split open, arms clawing out of the fur, a human face with the same dark eyes staring at you with a strange fascination. A boy wriggled out of the seal skin, his shoulder-length hair a deep chestnut, the bottom canine tooth missing from his mouth. You thought he might be your age, too small to have hit puberty, though  _both_  your bottom canines were gone so you feel you must be older, and therefore superior. Quickly, before you could loudly introduce yourself and your teeth stats, the boy wrapped his limp sealskin around your shoulders and pulled you towards the shore.

 

The moment the sealskin hit your shoulders, the cold retreated from your veins. Despite that, however, your teeth continued to chatter, your toes still painfully numb as the boy hauled you up to stand, bracing his arms around your waist. He said something then, in a strange tongue that you still don’t understand, helping you stumble out of the freezing water by carrying most of your weight. Your fingers began to tingle, then burn, as the sealskin around your torso somehow prevented any chill from clawing its way into your bones. Your feet couldn’t feel the tough twigs and brambles of the forest as you were yanked forward, towards the group of cabins your family was staying at.

 

The boy banged his fist on the door, yelling gibberish until one of your parents investigated out of concern. At the sound of the door handle turning, the boy left you to collapse against the cracking wood of the porch. Everything was too fuzzy for you to remember from there, the cold hitting you once again with such a force you could barely breathe. Apparently, all your parents saw when they opened the door was a completely naked boy running as fast as his thin legs could take him towards the beach, a dark, thick cloth tightly clutched in his hand. Their attention quickly shifted once they realized that their child was passed out on the ground, hands, feet, and lips blue.

 

It took three days and one emergency room visit for you to become fully conscious again. Only when you were adequately warmed up did your parents risk uncovering you long enough for the ride to the nearest clinic, a hot water bottle on your feet and a heavy winter coat buttoned up to the chin. A doctor gave you a single once over and told your parents that you would be ‘fine,’ scolding them for letting you wander off in your anger. Apparently, you babbled non-stop about the seal boy who was your new friend all the way home, falling promptly asleep once you were tucked in bed for a nap. You don’t remember any of this, only told long after the fact by another family member who witnessed everything go down.

 

Typically, you just shrug the strangeness and memory gaps off as part of childhood. Everyone has some traumatic tale from when they were a kid, after all. Yours only has a little hyperactive imagination splashed in for good measure. But now, standing on the very beach that you nearly died at all those years ago, you don’t know if you can be sure. After all, your parents  _did_  admit to seeing a boy running away as soon as they opened the door so it couldn’t have been  _all_ fiction. What you really want to know is which parts are true and which are just a figment of your overactive brain?

 

It has been years since your family returned to this area, maybe even decades, you don’t keep count. Like with every family get-together, the close quarters are always fine the first few days, quickly spiraling into arguments that dig up everyone’s ancient history. After someone slyly brought up your parents’ irresponsibility, your memories took the forefront of your thoughts. They churn back and forth, flashing before your eyes like a movie over and over and over again, even though you would like nothing more to forget them, they keep returning to make sure you won’t get a wink of sleep at night.

 

Instead of tossing and turning in your bed, you decide to walk along the coastline. At least this way you may end up exhausting yourself into not thinking about anything at all. You hold your shoes in one hand as you wander along the wet sand, a haze of fog rising from the ocean and churning around your ankles. The air is damp and tastes of evergreen and salt, though not unusually cold as spring slowly melts away into summer. In the distance, you can hear the cries of seagulls being disturbed in their nests, and beyond that, the faint whistle of a northbound train about to cross the border. A feeling of nostalgia warms your insides.

 

This may be the furthest you have ever walked along the shore, the moon’s light just barely illuminating your way in brief intervals. You use the flashlight from your phone to keep from tripping on any rocks that stick up in your path, the bright LED cutting through the terrain and chasing any nocturnal critters away. Up ahead, you notice a smoke trail wisping into the sky just beyond the treeline. Tires squeal, causing you to jump, and all at once the sounds of civilization crash down around you.  _At this hour?_  You wonder, wandering up the little hill of sand, finding a boardwalk that leads into the evergreens.

 

There is a little diner with a blinking fluorescent welcome sign, the windows’ old blinds are all open to reveal a warmly lit interior, populated only by only three men on the barstools, all together in a corner, and an exhausted-looking waitress. With little else to do, you slip on your shoes and open the glass door, a bell chiming your entrance. All four of the inhabitants turn to stare, and you suppose that this place must not get a lot of people this late. Tentatively, you walk up to the bar and sit on one of the stools away from the group. It smells like frying oil and stale coffee, the universal scent of casual restaurants that lacks the stale chemicals of actual fast food.

 

“What can I get for you?” The waitress asks, not exactly hostile, but guarded.

 

You order a hot drink, the chill from your walk catching up on you. Only one of the three TVs is on, a local news station announcing a detailed play-by-play of the day’s weather. The waitress slides you a mug, and you accept it with a quiet thank-you, eyes still watching the screen even though you are not exactly interested in the tidal schedule. It looks like a light misting of rain will hit the beaches on the afternoon, and by golly, your entire family getting cooped up for a few hours is bound to create some tension.

 

“There’s nothing ‘little’ in the storm that’s about to hit, mark my words,” the oldest man at the barstool gruffs. His thick beard is graying from rich brown to silver, the rest of his hair hidden in a veteran’s cap.

 

Even better. You can already see the events unfolding now, a snide comment here, a sly statement there, and your family will be throwing hands before the hour is over. Taking a sip from your mug, you debate going back and trying to get as much sleep as possible before everything begins to spiral out of control. Before you can make the decision and leave, you notice on the men watching you out of the corner of your eye. Quickly, you sneak a peek at him, all nerves gearing up to activate fight or flight if he looks like he wants to wear your skin like a hat.

 

You are expecting to see a smirk with a shadowy face, maybe a sly, egotistical smile of a predator finding prey, but definitely not someone with ashy tan skin and eyes about to pop out of their sockets. He looks as though  _he_  is about to be the one ritually skinned, dark irises darting all over your body as though sizing you up for a fight. His brown hair is the same color as the older man, though slightly more vibrant with youth.

 

Your eyes meet in a brief millisecond, confusion threading through your chest as you try to figure out what his deal is. The both of you immediately look away from each other, a little shock forming in the back of your skull and shivering down your spine. Then the men began to talk again, you had not realized they were silent until they resumed their conversations too low for you to hear. You decide that this is enough, patting your pocket for a few crumpled dollars and placing them on the counter. Quickly retreating back outside, you notice the barest sliver of sunlight bleeding from the horizon, the darkness making a full retreat before the sun fully rises in the east.

 

To your immense relief, none of them try following as you half sprint down the boardwalk, back down the beach. As soon as you get to the sand, you pause, taking a minute to breathe deeply. You didn’t know to feel exhausted until the sunrise made you realize just how long you’ve been out, seeing the edge of day shifts something in your body and your brain wants to let you know that it’s  _time to sleep now._  With some chagrin, you kick off your shoes and begin the long walk back to the cabins. There is some hope that your little cousins would at least let you sleep for an hour or two before getting rowdy, though deep down you know better than to put too much hope in that fantasy.

 

Thoroughly exhausted is one way to describe how utterly numb you are by the time you return. Unfortunately, you don’t get to shuffle to your room and throw yourself on the bed, since your family is literally minutes away from calling the coastguard to comb the ocean for your body. Questions and accusations barrage you the moment you step through the door, relief morphing into anger once it becomes clear that you walked out of the house without telling anyone just because you felt like it. With their worry near smothering any energy left from the excursion, you decide not to try and explain the strange man in the diner.

 

No rest for the wicked. You get dish duty from breakfast and spend half the morning rinsing plates and scrubbing pots, all the while staring idly out the large window positioned above the sink. The clouds suddenly grow darker, the wind rattling the towering pines as though the ancient trees are nothing more than reeds in a marsh. True to the older man’s word, the sky opens up and weeps a torrent of water, the drops hitting against the roof like gunshots.

 

It’s the perfect weather to lunge with a mug of tea on your bed. Somehow, as though heaven took pity on your sleep deprived body and sent some poor angels who all deserve whatever qualifies as a raise, you manage to actually nap. No cousins jumping on your bed and shrieking for you to wake up, no overbearing aunt who wants someone to dump all of her pent up anger on, no parent trying to pressure you into ‘joining the family fun, goddamnit.’ You rest like the dead, completely unconscious, no thoughts or dreams to soil the experience.

 

You wake well-rested, currently the best moment of your vacation by far, and wander into the kitchen to rummage through the fridge for a snack. You pick up a bottle of something with so little alcohol content it might as well be juice and pop open the lid with one of those kitchen multi-tools sold on infomercials. The cabin is eerily quiet, you just realize. The worst of the squall appears to be over, only a light  _pitter-patter_  of tiny raindrops left, the storm only wringing out the last of its reserves before, you assume, it dissipates entirely.

 

There’s a note on the counter, letting you know that most of the kids are on their way to play in the park up the road a bit, and any remaining adults not chaperoning what is about to become a mud bath are chilling in a different cabin altogether.  _That_  has to be the best news you’ve received in the past year. With a small amount of fanfare, you rummage through the overhead cabinets to find the hiding place of the scones, buried under inconspicuous kitchen items since any kind of baking good tends to disappear quickly when small children are involved. You end up on the front porch with a thick blanket, a scone, a thermos filled with piping hot tea, and a book that’s been on your reading list forever, cuddling into the rope hammock and beginning to read.

 

 _Crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch,_  “LEEEHHGGG.”

 

You look down. At the base of the wooden stairs is a  _seal_ , two large, intelligent brown eyes staring up at you, hauntingly familiar. It must have crawled out of the swollen ocean several dozen meters away, bouncing through pine needles on the dirt trail of the forest to get to the cabin village. Squinting out in the distance, you realize that through the fog, you can’t even see where the landscape cuts off into the ocean.

 

“Blegh,” the seal snorts, shaking its flippers and stretching its blubbery body.

 

What are you supposed to do? Who do you call about this? Animal control? The coast guard? A marine biology lab? You watch the animal with suspicion, wondering why it would ever consider wandering beyond the beach. The only time animals seek out humans, you think, is either when they want junk food that never should be fed to them, or when they need help. The seal rolls from onto its back, exposing its belly to you, waving its flipper around.

 

“L’egg.”

 

“What’s wrong?” You ask in an unsure tone, setting your book down and removing the blanket from your lap. It doesn’t look visibly distressed, and you don’t see anything like plastic bags or wires tangling any part of its skin. Surely, hopefully, it’s nothing internal.

 

The seal rolls back over to its stomach, then back over, snorting and grunting as though trying to speak. Without much else to do, you (rather stupidly) approach it. Does it… does it want you to pet it or something? Do seals typically seek companionship from other species? The raindrops hit your skin like little pinpricks of ice as you reach beyond the shelter of the porch, lightly tapping on the seal’s stomach before quickly retracting it. When it doesn’t lash out and rip your fingers off, you try again, petting the short length of coat you could reach. The seal snorts once, its muscles clearly relaxing, as it closes its eyes.

 

“FAT DOG!” A high-pitched squeal of delight shatters the moment.

 

Shit. Fuck. The seal snaps its eyes open, waving its flippers frantically to right itself, just as a group of screaming children fast approaches. You stand, taking a barefoot step on the soaking ground, ready to kick any one of them in the chest if they come too close with their grabby hands.

 

“Seals are a protected species,” you say loud enough for the adults to hear, “and none of us want to get fined, I’m guessing?”

 

That seems to spur them into action, trying to redirect the kids’ interest, and when that works to no avail, physically restraining the more  _excited_  ones. You stand over the seal, the pine needles soft with water under your feet, a chill seeping from the earth and into your legs. Escorting a marine animal across the land is a slow process since the seal’s only method of locomotion is bouncing an inch or two forward at a time, but surely and steadily you make it back to the sand of the beach. You stand at the edge of the forest, watching the seal jiggle forward to the water. It pauses at the right where the land meet the sea, digging its flippers in the sand and spinning around to look at you once more.

 

“Blegh eeegg, le’gh.”

 

“Uh, you’re welcome?” You assume what it is saying to you, crossing your arms over your chest in an attempt to shut out the cold. Water mists your head, the rain light enough to not have wholly soaked through your clothes yet, your breath coming out in soft clouds that dissipate within moments.

 

The seal twists back around to the ocean, pausing only as a wave splattered against it, letting the tide carry it further out from the shore. The water doesn’t seem particularly choppy, you hope that the seal can make it back to wherever it came from safely. You watch the little dark blob move further away, then disappear, obscured by the hazy air, before turning around and hiking back up the trail. Teeth chattering with a chill that crept into your muscles, you half jog, have walk back to the cabin.

 

The next morning, the sky is significantly brighter than the day before, so everyone takes advantage of the sunlight by going out to the beach. Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean that the water is warm, however. No one wades further than their knees, staying in the shallows to play as wildly as they want. You lay on a towel, skin greased with sunscreen, the sun washing you in a soft heat. Before you know it, you fall fast asleep, feet digging into the warm sand.

 

Something shakes your arm gently.  _We’re going inside,_  a voice echoes in your ears. To get them to leave you to your nap, you mumble something barely coherent, quickly falling back asleep. The sun is as delightfully warm as a blanket. You may as well be dead, when….

 

“When was the last time you put on sunscreen?”

 

You crack open an eye. A man is kneeling an arm’s distance from you, his skin a warm bronze with freckles smattering across his nose. After sitting up, you are hit with a dizzy spell that makes you fall back against the towel. A headache hammers against your skull, your throat dry with thirst. Everything seems fuzzy… wait, there’s a guy next to you. What did he want again? Sunscreen. You look at your arm, which has evolved from its original color to the red side of the color spectrum. It isn’t terrible, you think, but you know that it probably will become worse as the day moves on.

 

“A long while ago, I guess,” you try sitting up again, managing to do so without feeling overwhelmingly dizzy.

 

“Can you walk back to where you are staying on your own?” He asks, clearly concerned for your well-being. Why does he seem so familiar?

 

“Um,” you weigh your options. If it is this difficult to sit up, walking back is going to be worse. Your gut instinct is to trust this man, and your gut has never been wrong before. It must be his familiarity, you must know him from somewhere else, and after a few moments of mulling it over, it hits you. “Didn’t I see you in the diner the yesterday morning?”

 

“Yeah,” he confirms, nodding, “I’m sorry about staring at you like that, I, uh, thought you were someone else.”

 

“Like an ex?” It’s an easy excuse, but you let yourself believe it, accepting his outstretched hand.

 

“Yeah, something like that.” He helps you up with ease, muscles not even twitching at your weight. “I’m Mark, by the way.” Though skin on skin contact was excruciatingly painful, you have to wrap your arm around his neck to ease most weight off your feet.

 

You quickly tell him your name, voice not yet strained with pain, then focus quietly on walking in such a way that your flip-flops would stop chafing your skin. Mark tells you about how his grandfather and father both work with him in a small fishing company, how they usually have to be out in the docks ridiculously early, and how you caught them at the tail end of a shift. He was tired, the light in the cafe was muted, and he jumped headfirst into conclusions by just making out your hair color and stature.

 

Just as he finishes his story, you stumble up to the cabins. One of your family members shouts, everything suddenly too much, too bright, too noisy. You pull yourself away from Mark and walk over the bushes, vomiting what little is in your stomach. An overwhelming sense of deja vu hits as people swarm you, ushering you inside, making you comfortable as possible on the couch. A cold cloth is placed over your forehead, someone fanning you with a piece of paper while another fills a cup with icy water.

 

While you’re being pampered, you see Mark talking to one of your male relatives on the porch, before someone decides to move you to your bed. Having no appetite, you lay in under your cool covers all night and all day, skin only marginally relieved by dollar store aloe cream. Once the initial vomiting passed, your stomach stills and you no longer experience nausea. By the morning of your second day, the red burn had faded slightly to your original skin color, and though you have some dizzy spells, as long as you don’t exert yourself, you are fine.

 

And it turns out that you are feeling better just in time for a barbecue with Mark and his family. Apparently, your family took a liking to Mark, which is frightening enough, lord knows one of your aunts is going to get it in her head that you two would be just  _spectacular_  together and you wouldn’t hear the end of it. Feeling good enough, you sit down at the little kitchen table and help mix the marinades and sauces, glad for something to do to keep your mind off things.

 

Then Mark and his family arrive, driving up the gravel path and parking in between the pine trees. Mark, three of his siblings, his parents, and his paternal grandfather exit two vehicles; a mini-van with chipped paint, and an immaculate truck with a fishing business logo painted on the side. There are three younger kids, too, though it turns out they are Mark’s older sister’s children and not his. Not that it would make a difference. God, what are you thinking?

 

The back half of Mark’s hair is tied in a messy bun, the curly front strands not quite long enough to make it. He is wearing a plain long sleeved shirt and jeans just tight enough around the butt that you do a double take when he turns around to check if the kids are behaving accordingly. Quickly, you check yourself before you wreck yourself. You don’t need to be caught staring at this guy’s ass, a guy who is still practically a stranger. Oh, god, but when he turns back at you and smiles, your knees are weak, and you wonder if the sunstroke’s fatigue is creeping back up on you.

“You look a lot better!” Mark greets, looking genuinely pleased to see you.

 

“Thanks,” you respond awkwardly, “you look good, too.” Mental facepalm.

 

“I uh, brought these.” He’s holding out a covered casserole dish. “My mom made some dessert pastries.”

 

“Let’s put those on the counter.” You accept the gift, opening the screen door and gesturing for him to follow. Most of the people had cleared out of the cabin by now, grouping around the grill, some migrating down to the playground. As you set the ceramic dish on the counter, you take the liberty of lifting the edge of the foil to see its contents. A warm, flaky scent wafts up, your stomach growling with eager anticipation.

 

“Yeah, it’s usually a people-pleaser,” Mark smiles when he sees the look on your face.

 

“That, and I’ve barely eaten today.” You check over your shoulder to make sure no little gremlins are watching, before snaking one of your hands into the foil and retrieving one of the treats within. One bite and you are just head over heels in love, the flavor just the right balance of sweet and tart, the buttery flakes melting against your tongue.  _”Wow.”_

 

“That’s usually the reaction for first timers.” Mark’s smile grows wider.

 

Once you finish the pastry, you and Mark head back out to the porch, bottles of drink in hand, sitting down on old wooden chairs that overlook a group of children who have decided to build little fae temples out of pebbles and fallen pine branches. As the two of you talk, you realize that conversing with him has an ease to it, no awkward pause as someone tries to scramble to come up with another topic, the conversation is fluid and moves from one subject to another with ease. His company is enjoyable, he never once tries talking over you, never once contradicts a statement you make.

 

When most food is ready, the two of you wait until the rapid waves of children have plates full of food, tearing into the meat and fish like starved predators. You and Mark pick at the grilled selection, Mark mainly going for a pescatarian plate, before swinging around to the other side of the table and picking out some side dishes. When the two of you got up, the porch had been overrun with people who didn’t want to sit on the forest ground.

 

“Do you want to sit out on the beach?” You suggest since that would be the only place the two of you could get any quiet.

 

“Sure.” Mark agrees readily, and the two of you wander down the sea, sitting down in the sand that is just damp enough to stay put, but not enough to soak through your clothes.

 

After some trivial topics, one of which comparing Marvel to DC and arguing which is superior, Mark turns his gaze over to the waves and says, “fun fact, a kid almost drowned in this spot years ago.”

 

“That fact doesn’t sound too terribly fun,” you say, knowing very well that kid was most likely you. Oh god, have you become some cautionary tale the locals tell vacationers? Are you basically a pacific north Aesop’s Fable? You wonder if they embellished the story at all, maybe changing a few details to make it more interesting.

 

“Yeah, uh, I was about their age when it happened,” Mark says, “I was the one who found them in the shallows, so being here kind of brought back memories.”

 

“Funny question, and it’s one that you don’t have to answer.” You take a swig of your drink before you can lose your nerve. “You… didn’t happen to be naked when you pulled the kid out of the water, did you?”

 

Mark stares at you for a minute, then bursts out laughing. “Actually, yes. It’s not a detail I go around telling people, though.”

 

“So, that was probably me,” you admit, “being a brat and running off. Anyway, my parents thought it was particularly funny that my rescuer was a skinny dipping twelve-year-old who bolted the moment I was safe.”

 

Mark laughs good-naturedly. “When I was younger, and not a lot of vacationers would come through, I would go swimming in the dead of summer naked, just because, no real rhyme or reason. If I had known I was going to have to pull someone out of the water and wander into civilization, I would have brought a little more than just a towel with me.”

 

You look at him funny. “That’s what that was? It always wondered, since…” your voice trails off.

 

“Since what?” Mark asks, cocking his head and regarding you strangely.

 

“Nothing, nothing. I guess I just imagined it, you know, almost dying and everything.” You brush it off. “I did have an overactive imagination.”

 

“Come on, tell me,” Mark coaxes, taking a bite of grilled salmon, “I promise not to think you’re insane.”

 

So you do. The little bits and pieces come back better while you narrate, about the seal, about the boy that wriggled from its skin. It only takes a few minutes, because your memory completely halts the moment you arrived at the front porch, as though your body allowed itself to shut down the moment it recognized you were in a safe place. It feels good to get it off your chest, you have been holding onto it as though it were a dirty secret. With Mark, you don’t get the same judgemental stare that you get from your therapist or parents, convinced that you are trying to believe in fairy tales that you should have grown out of years ago.

 

“When I brought you back to your cabin, the towel was still around your shoulders. I almost left without it,” Mark fills one of the gaps in your memory, “but then you lifted it up to me and said, ‘you need this.’” His dark eyes return to the sea, his voice almost embarrassed, as though the decades between the incident just barely healed a wound.

 

“Good thing I didn’t keep the only thing you needed to cover yourself with.” You snicker, then stop when he turns back at you, clearly wounded.

 

“Not that it mattered!” His voice is suddenly chipper, quickly throwing up a facade of carelessness. “I did run off before I could wrap it around my waist, after all. The damage was done, you were subjected to the naked body of a prepubescent boy.”

 

There’s something more there, you can tell, but you also know that if Mark wants you to know, then he will tell you when he’s ready. The subject changes and the two of you start talking carefreely once more, the previous conversation burying itself in the very back of your skull, certain to wriggle out in an inopportune moment. The two of you only return to the cabins to sniff out some dessert, retreating to the back porch of the cabin to quietly enjoy each other’s company.

 

Mark’s family leaves as soon as the youngest one begins having a meltdown, the smaller children being ushered into the minivan and strapped in their car seats. You stand next to Mark, arms hugging yourself, trying to figure out a way to ask him to visit again. Instead, it turns out that one of your older uncles is meeting the men for breakfast tomorrow morning at the diner, asking around if anyone wants to join. Tentatively, you raise your hand, and Mark gives you one of his dazzling smiles that make your legs feel like jelly.

 

The next morning you are up long before dawn is but a faint whisper on the forest horizon, the stars smothered by clouds and the air crisp with cool humidity. Driving to the diner is, as expected, far quicker than wandering the shore in the dead of night. Within minutes, your uncle’s car drives up to the cracked pavement of the parking lot. You hop out, bouncing on the balls of your feet, then wait for your uncle to enter the diner first, so your infatuation isn’t that obvious. Mark, his father, and his grandfather are in the exact same area you remember seeing them in the day before, on the barstools, eyes on the weather channel.

 

You settle next to Mark, nonchalantly looking over the menu of generic diner food, trying to decide how best to clog up your arteries. Breakfast with his family is nice, though Mark occasionally glances over to his grandfather while you talk, as though making sure the old man isn’t eavesdropping. The conversation is slightly more strained, though you chalk it up to the nosy men who sit near you.

 

“Do you kayak?” Mark asks, just as your uncle snags the check from you to pay.

 

“Not really,” you respond.

 

“Would you like to?” He sees your weariness. “Or we could just hike along the coast.”

 

“Hiking sounds better to me,” you agree.

 

Instead of hopping into the car to go home, you and Mark break off from the older men and wander down the boardwalk, towards the beach. This side of the coast is much more inviting when you’ve had a good night’s sleep, you realize, thoroughly soaking in the sunlight and salty air. The water glows with the sunrise, the sand glittering like glass. You keep close to Mark as the two of you wander out of earshot from anyone who would care to know your business.

 

“Do you know the legends of the selkie?” Mark asks suddenly, glancing over at you to gauge your reaction.

 

“Um, like mermaids but with seals instead of fish?”

 

“Close enough.” Mark fidgets with a compass he pulled from the pocket of his jeans. “A selkie has two layers of skin, one human, the other a seal coat. To turn back into a seal, a selkie puts on their coat. To turn human again, they take the coat off.”

 

“Oh, like how I thought it you came out of a seal. Right.” You must have read that fairytale before you almost drowned, then internalizing it so that your next near-death experience would involve those specific characteristics. It sounds like something a younger version of you might have enjoyed.

 

“Right,” Mark echoes, quickly resuming whatever you were talking about in the cafe.

 

The walks with Mark become a regular thing. You eat breakfast at the diner on weekdays, tagging along with your uncle who managed to make good friends with Mark’s grandfather, then you and he break off from the group and wander around the coastline for the rest of the morning. Then, one particular morning, nearing the end of your family’s vacation, the two of you are discussing what you plan on doing back home when Mark suddenly stops.

 

“I have something to show you,” Mark says abruptly, pointing over to a short rocky cliff on the edge of where the forest gives way to sand.

 

“Oooookay?” You follow him, shoes in hand, your feet burying in the warm sand with every step.

 

He stops in the center of a little rock pile, reaching down into the stones, clearly looking for something he had hidden there prior. Of course, it could be anything, from a little knick-knack he made as a kid to a back of heroin, and you are not particularly excited to see if it’s the latter. Instead of either of those things, though, he drags out from the crevice something long and sleek, light brown and speckled with spots. You squint, trying to figure out why in the world something like that would be so startling familiar.

 

“This,” he holds it out in your direction, “is my sealskin.”

 

“Oh.” What are you supposed to say to that? “Like from an actual seal?”

 

Mark lets out a little huff. “Yes. Like from me, the actual seal.”

 

Is he playing a joke on you? You are  _not_  going to give him an easy time, that’s for sure. In a challenge, you cross your arms and look him up and down. “Ok, show me.”

 

At your words, he immediately takes off his t-shirt to reveal a shapely and toned stomach, not completely ripped like the kind of men on body-building magazines, but the functional muscles of someone who spends their life out on the sea. As soon as he starts unbuckling his belt, you throw your hands over your eyes and squeak in protest. God, if this  _is_  a prank, he’s super dedicated. Before you gain the courage to remove your hands and blink open a single eye-

 

“Blegh.”

 

“Oh my god.” It’s a seal, right where Mark was, just a second ago. A seal. The same exact speckled seal that wandered up from the cabin, the same one you escorted back to the sea, the same… seal… that… saved you from almost dying all those years ago.

 

“Egg. Le’gh.” Mark bounces forward slightly.

 

Your legs give out, and you collapse on the sand, kneeling in front of the seal- no,  _Mark,_  you remind yourself. Still, you half expect for cameras to pop out and for someone to scream  _you’ve been pranked!_  None of that happens, and you find yourself reaching out a hand and placing it on the selkie’s head in a half-hearted, unfinished pat.

 

“Oh my god,” you hear yourself saying again, as though watching from a distance.

 

Mark rolls around to his back, and you quickly withdraw your hand as a crack appears in his neck, running just halfway down his stomach. Out pops his upper human half, his hair is tousled like a case of bedhead, the pupils of his eyes a little bigger than usual. The area where his body disappears into the lower half of the seal is seamless, as though the cloak and his human body are one single creature. His tail flicks, as though confirming your suspicions.

 

“All along, the seal… it was you,” you murmur, suddenly realizing how close the two of you really are.

 

“I wanted to be sure that you were the one,” Mark whispers as you take your shaking hands and place them on his shoulders to reassure yourself that he’s real, solid. “I recognized your aura from the diner, but I wanted to be sure.”

 

“Why?”

 

“You were the only person ever to touch my coat, that kind of thing…” he shakes his head awkwardly, “it stays with a selkie. At first, I just wanted to know the person I saved. But this…” Mark takes one of your hands off his shoulder and puts it over his heart. “I didn’t think that I would love you, or else I would have told you from the start.”

 

You are a little glad he didn’t pull all the stops when you first met, because then you would just think of him as that one raving lunatic you barely escaped with your life. You don’t voice that now, though. Maybe later. Instead, you focus on those three words he uttered, those three words that sent your emotions rocketing across the sky and back into your barely functioning body. And then he leans forward, just enough to be an invitation.

 

When you press your mouth against his, it feels as though your heart is about to knock its way out of your ribcage. His lips taste like the sea, salty with a hint of bitterness, and you have to exert every square ounce of self-control not to lash your tongue out and deepening the kiss. It’s chaste, neither of you pressing against any boundaries the other may have, and you pull away after an impossibly long moment. Mark’s chest takes in a deep breath as though he broke the surface of water after drowning, and smiles a lopsided, hesitant smile.

 

“I suppose this is where I ask you out for dinner,” Mark offers.

 

“And this is where I accept,” you respond.

**Author's Note:**

> [BLEGH](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL9iMPx9CpQ)
> 
>  
> 
> *Youtuber voice* If you liked what you read, smash that kudos button! Want to tell me how much you liked this fic? Leave me a comment! Want to keep tabs on my writings? Subscribe and you get a free (yes, FREE) email every time I publish a fic! Want me to write more? Shower me with praise because positive reinforcement motivates me to work!


End file.
